The puzzle of the Theaetetus is that in spite of its length and
its
elaborate and technical discussion of philosophic matters, the dialogue
is, in substance, as aporetic as the presumably earlier and simpler
"Socratic" dialogues. Three definitions of episteme are proposed
(knowledge is perception, true opinion, and finally doxa alethes meta
logou), but all are shown by Socrates to be unsatisfactory. In the
end, we
are apparently left with no resolution to the epistemological question
that opens the dialogue.

Rosemary Desjardins argues boldly and
brilliantly that the Theaetetus contains not only an answer to the
question of the character of knowledge, but considerably more besides --
an outline of a Platonic ontology. That ontology is neither materialist nor
idealist (it is not a theory of forms), but like the twentieth century
theory known as generative emergence holds that beings are particular
interactive combinations of material elements. On this view, while wholes
(for example, words, to use a Platonic
model) may be analyzed into their elemental parts (letters), each whole
has a property or quality separate from the aggregated properties of its
parts. Wholes differ from piles of elements in having an irreducible and
independent power of their own, even
though they are in one sense (the sense of material composition or cause)
nothing but their parts. "Dog" both is and is not "d" and "o" and "g."
Similarly, on Desjardins' reading, the Theaetetus teaches that the
formula
doxa alethes meta logou is both true and false (10), depending on
how it
is read: false, if taken to imply that logos is an additive combination or
pile of true opinions, but true if taken to imply that a logos is a set of
opinions combined in some other way than mere addition so as to produce
or generate a discourse with new powers of its own.

I cannot begin
to summarize or assess the intricate argument Desjardins makes for her
genuinely innovative reading. I found it mostly quite plausible, but this
is something for each reader to judge; if you are careful to have your
Theaetetus at hand and nothing much else on your mind, I think
that you
will find the process of forming such judgments very satisfying. This is
an unusually exhilarating and demanding book, clearly the product of long
reflection, and one that will amply reward careful reading.

In
addition to Desjardins' central thesis, there are a number of important
suggestions here. First among them is her claim that "the problem involved
in understanding just what any statement or formula means is one that is
absolutely central to Plato's
whole philosophical enterprise. All philosophical formulas -- and most
particularly those representing hard-core Platonic doctrine [e.g.,
knowledge=true opinion meta logou] -- are one and all subject to
inadequate or false, as well as adequate or true, interpretations" (6).
Having established the essentially problematic quality of philosophic
discourse as a central Platonic theme (and not simply a modest Socratic
disclaimer), Desjardins is then in a position to read Socrates' ways of
causing aporia and subjecting his interlocutors to elenchus, in the
Theaetetus and elsewhere, as positive steps toward philosophizing.
Her
thought here is that aporia and refutative cross-examination serve to
purify ambiguous formulations by excluding false or misleading interpretations
and opening the path to truer ones (85). One by-product of
this line of interpretive argument is to suggest strongly that the modern
habit of separating the dialogues into (early and aporetic) Socratic and
(later and doctrinal) Platonic ones makes very little sense.

The
evidence for her interpretation is drawn entirely from a close reading of
the Theaetetus, illuminated by frequent glances at other dialogues
whose
connections with the Theaetetus Desjardins attempts to show -- the
Sophist
and the Statesman, of course, but also the Meno and
especially the
Philebus. There is thus absolutely no reliance here on any supposed
secret
unwritten teaching that might be reconstructed from ancient reports
(224, n.2). Her reading pays careful attention both to discursive argument
and to imagery, to both logical and dramatic features of the dialogue. The
self-presentation of Socrates as matchmaker-midwife is shown to reinforce
her attribution of emergentism to Plato, as are the images of the wax
block and the aviary. The most strikingly successful result of her
refusal to abstract arguments from their dramatic setting is the
connection she develops between the examples of mathematical inquiry in
the dialogue, usually dismissed by philosophic commentators of the
analytic persuasion as confused or irrelevant, and the explicit
discussion of the nature of knowledge. What is especially noteworthy here
is that Desjardins' careful reading of Theaetetus on surds and Socrates on
dice stresses the positive way mathematical discourse opens
avenues for philosophic inquiry, rather than (as in Benardete's recent
commentary) stressing the limits or eventual futility of mathematics.

Desjardins' Plato is decidedly closer in style and content to
Heraclitus than to Parmenides, and he shares with Aristotle the sense that
one important way of conceiving the task of philosophy is to picture it as
finding a way of avoiding simple but false dichotomies, eristic
disjunctions such as the propositions that everything must be either in
motion or at rest, or either knowable or not, or either entirely the same
or entirely other. Speaking of the view of logos that Socrates, toward the
end of the Theaetetus, reports having grasped in a dream -- the idea
that the ousia of logos is the sumploke of names --
Desjardins comments: "Far from being
impaled on the horns of a dilemma, the dream theory (to use Plato's
colorful imagery) allows us to slip through between both at once
(Sophist, 251a1-3). Like the Minoan bull dancers who, grasping both
horns
at once, soar exquisitely into escape beyond them, so in the dream theory,
grasping both disjuncts at once, we similarly soar to escape beyond reach
of the
reductio" (157).

This colorful and cheering image is, as far as
Desjardins' own style of composition goes, the exception rather than the
rule. Far from being fanciful and allusive, her prose is frequently
schematic, with lists of points and diagrams of arguments often employed
as supplements. Some of the diagrams are particularly useful for
sharpening Desjardins' claims about the pattern of Socratic argument,
particularly her diagram of the contrast between Meno's paradox, which
Socrates calls an eristic logos, and an implicit Socratic response which
would qualify as dialectical (94).

For the most part her writing is
of striking clarity, so that The Rational Enterprise presents
itself as a
series of arguments to be accepted, rejected, or revised on the basis of
the reader's own construal of the Platonic text, rather than relying for
its persuasive force on the deployment of a special critical vocabulary
intelligible only to the initiated, a practice regrettably common within
all the current warring schools of Plato scholarship.

In the case
of a book as comprehensive and innovative as this one, every reader will
have some doubts and worries. I have three I think worth noting: 1) While
Desjardins' ontology of generative emergence is much closer to Plato's
texts than the orthodox neo-Platonic invention of a Platonic "theory of
forms," an expression Plato himself never uses, she sometimes seems to
claim too much for her ontology, to erect a systematizing reading of Plato
which might undermine the essential ambiguity of the texts she wants to
maintain. Still, her argument is most of the time quite open to competing
interpretations, as shown in her wide-ranging and thoughtful discussions
in the footnotes. But I wonder whether she attributes to Plato's Socrates
so strong a commitment to a particular doctrine that it might seem to
undermine the Socratic distinction between human and divine wisdom, or
between philosophia and sophia. 2) The current philosophical status of
emergentism needs to be clarified -- what is assumed and what implied by
the view that there are wholes whose properties are essentially
irreducible to the sum of their parts? Is there, as there seems to be, a
relationship between the ontological view Desjardins attributes to the
Platonic Socrates -- "The arising of radical novelty out of previously
present elements" (40) -- and present-day ideas of chaotic systems and
strange attractors, which hold that certain systems of events are both
entirely orderly and entirely unpredictable? 3) What is the relationship
between Desjardins' Plato and Aristotelian metaphysics? They seem quite
close, but she is notably reticent about comparing the two, perhaps out of
a wish to avoid appearing to read Aristotle into Plato. But since, for
Aristotle, being is a matter of potential stuff becoming actualized in a
determinate manner, the resemblance between his ontology and Desjardins'
view of Plato is striking. Would Desjardins agree with Hans-Georg
Gadamer's thought (The Idea of the Good in Platonic-Aristotelian
Philosophy, pp. 114-115) that Aristotle in effect transforms Plato's
"mythical metaphors" into a language of "concepts"?

The text of
The
Rational Enterprise is supplemented by an epilogue and several
appendices
clarifying the mathematical examples in the Theaetetus (one
typographical
error here may cause confusion: on p. 175, the second half of the formula
representing the divided line in the Republic should read A + B : C
+ D,
not A + B = C + D), and discussing the concept of emergence in twentieth
century philosophy with an eye to justifying its use in Plato
interpretation. There are as well extensive and interesting notes dealing
with recent interpretive debates, and a lengthy and helpful bibliography.
The Rational Enterprise is a gift to anyone who loves reading and
discussing Plato.